JMW Turner: The Lucerne Sketchbook

Turner's sketchbooks were private things which he kept to himself. They might live for some time, rolled up in his coat pockets or travel bags, to be pulled out as need arose. In the studio, they served as memory banks for future work. The sketchbook reproduced within this unique publication includes watercolour sketches Turner made on his trip to Lucerne in Switzerland capturing the beautiful Rigi mountain, a landscape he returned to again and again. Drawn back to the mountains, Turner made these sketches after the famous The Blue Rigi, Sunrise 1842, and they reveal his masterful hand as he portrays the ever changing moods of the Swiss-Alps, tantalising depicted through rainy showers, sunbeams filtering through clouds and rainbows cast across the blue mountain peaks. This edition of the sketchbook reproduces all these beautiful watercolours in facsimile, with an illustrated introduction by Turner expert David Blayney Brown discussing their background and impact.